Is it worth going vegan… or should you just try to cut waste? Give up the car… or holiday closer to home? We dug into some common eco dilemmas to find which green alternatives make a real difference, so you know where your effort is best spent.
1. Give up meat OR throw away less food?
Do you eat meat? If so, it’s a big chunk of your impact on the climate. If people who eat 100g or more of meat a day were to go down to 50g or less for a year, they could halve the climate impact of their diet – in fact, it would make more difference than giving up their car. If they went vegan, they would cut by three quarters the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide pollution created – like taking two cars off the road.
At the same time, one third of all food is wasted, accounting for around 6-8% of emissions globally. Cutting this in half would have as much effect as halving consumption of meat and other animal products, such as butter, eggs and cheese. But food is wasted throughout the supply chain, from crops that go unharvested, to supermarket food that is unsold, to the food we buy and don’t eat. Unfortunately, it’s not a problem you can fix with just the choices you make in your kitchen – it requires a global effort.
VERDICT
At an individual level, giving up meat (or just cutting down) has more impact than cutting waste. But of course, there’s nothing to stop you doing both!
2. Switch bank OR switch energy supplier?
Not everyone can install solar panels or a wind turbine at home. But for someone in the UK, a greener energy deal could reduce your carbon footprint by 2.9 tons of CO2 a year (and support the development of even more solar and wind capacity). Currently, the world’s top 60 banks invest just 7% of their funds (€160 billion in 2022) in renewable developments. Even those with clear net zero commitments are putting billions into expanding use of fossil fuels.
The amount you could save is about the same as the amount estimated to be caused by an investor in the UK putting £12,500 (€15,000) into a bank that backs fossil fuels.
VERDICT
It’s hard to make an apples-to-apples comparison, but since the energy grid is already making progress breaking free of its reliance on fossil fuels, while banks, according to campaigners, are growing their investments, switching your bank to a green alternative seems a better place to focus your attention.
3. Swap your car OR fly less?
Ditching your gas or diesel car in favor of an electric vehicle could save an estimated 1.95 tons of heat-trapping pollution (from carbon dioxide and other gasses) per year. That’s about 15% more than you would save from taking one fewer long-haul return flight a year, and three times as much as cutting out a medium-length return flight. The exact amount you can save by going electric depends, of course, on where you live and how your electricity is generated.
VERDICT
It depends how frequent a flyer you are. If you only fly once a year, switching to an EV (or going car free!) makes more difference. If you fly more than that, then reducing your air miles will have a bigger impact.
4. Turn down the heating OR take shorter showers?
Everyone loves finding ways to get their energy bills down. So what about showers? Most of us spend eight to nine minutes luxuriating in the shower every day. If we were to cut that to five minutes, we’d save around 168g of CO2e (which means carbon dioxide and other gasses with equivalent potential to trap heat) per shower, or just over 60kg CO2e per person over a whole year. Turning down the thermostat on our heating by just 1°C, on the other hand, would save a household around 350kg CO2e per year.
VERDICT
Adjusting your heating is probably the bigger win – unless there are at least four people in the home who all reduce their showering time.
5. Real book OR e-book?
Printing a book requires paper, ink and water, as well as energy to produce and ship the book, which all adds up to 7.5kg of heat-trapping carbon dioxide pollution for the average book. You can help spread the impact of each book by borrowing books from friends or a library, and buying books second-hand.
If you don’t mind losing the feel and smell of real books then an e-reader is another option. But they are made of rare minerals and need energy to charge the battery and screen. You have to read about 100 new books for an e-reader to be a better option. On average, we keep an e-reader for four years (the longer the better, of course), so that is about 25 books a year. Can you keep up?
VERDICT
If you read a lot, an e-reader is a greener alternative. Just try not to drop it in the bath before you’ve got the most out of it.
Lifestyle
About Imagine5
We are storytellers inspiring you to live a planet-friendly life. Through our stories we shift perspectives and help you see that sustainable change is already underway. Sparking imagination that leads to action, creating a shift to sustainable behavior as the norm. It’s happening.
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